My one gut shot in recent memory was a crossbow kill that made for a good lesson. I'd set up my tent blind on the edge of a field where deer had been coming out late in the day. As it was getting darker I'd missed seeing a deer coming to the edge of the field about 30 yards away. When I did see it, I shot it behind the near front shoulder thinking that it was a shorter coupled yearling. When I found my arrow it was oh,oh. It had that heavy gut smell and resulted in one of the longest, hardest, nearly non-existent blood trails that I'd ever had to sort out. Instead of being a short coupled yearling, it was a long loin mature doe that had stood more quartering on than I'd thought. I might have caught the back edge of one lung, but for sure liver and gut.
